Fife NHS complaints backlog sparks concerns from councillor

Councillor David Graham (Labour for Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss villages) raised his serious concerns about the complaint backlog at Tuesday's NHS Fife board meeting.

According to the latest performance data, 62% of open stage two complaints have been open for more than 40 days with a third open for more than 80. The target, by comparison, is that at least half of stage two complaints will be addressed within 20 working days.

Mr Graham, the Council representative on the board, raised spoke out at Tuesday's meeting.

“It’s a real concern that nearly two thirds are still open after 40 days. I have to raise it because it’s a real concern for the people of Fife,” he said.

The issue was raised a second time on Tuesday during the chairperson’s update. Acting chair Alistair Morris recounted an update from a member of the Scottish Central legal ream about increasing complaints to the NHS about Covid-19.

“What alarmed me most, is that the legal team is starting to see a slow but increasing amount of complaints on Covid-19 either from members of the public who lost someone during the pandemic or indeed from our staff members who felt they were exposed to Covid-19 in an unnecessary, risk averse way,” he said.

“That number of complaints is increasing and that is going to add to the timescale of dealing with them.”

A new complaint “complexity scoring” tool to triage complaints and categorise them as low, moderate, or high complexity is being tested by NHS Fife.

The score will provide insight into the volume of complex complaints that NHS Fife receives and handles, and the hope is that it will eventually help with the backlog.